How to Create Admin Account in Windows 7 & 10 with Full Privileges

As an
active IT engineer, you will find yourself logging in and out of systems on a
daily basis. But what happens when you get locked out of the system you built
for one reason or the other?

Recommended
industry standard practice is to make sure there is one local account with administrative
rights on the client computer. Events can become unpleasant very quickly should
you ever find out the only active local account is merely assigned user
privileges.

Joining
a domain computer becomes impossible along with a block on all available
resources.

This
quick guide will walk you through the steps of creating an admin account with
full privileges in Windows 7 and the latest Windows 10 operating systems.

Click
the Windows button > Right click Computer > Select Manage.
You will need an admin account to perform this task.

The
Computer Management console opens with several System Tools options. Locate and
expand the tree for Local Users and Groups.

Highlight
Users
and notice the list of all users on the computer. Right click the space below to
continue.

Log
off from the session and you get an option to sign in using your newly created
admin account.

Creating Admin Account in Windows 10

The process to create an admin
account in Windows 10 is slightly different. Sysadmins who are familiar with
the changes would notice the device manager unlike seen in Windows 7 does not
have the tool to manage users and groups.

To enable integration of
Windows 10 into Microsoft’s Azure Cloud infrastructure has seen some of the
usual features changed to accommodate joining an Azure Active Directory domain
for example.

In the search panel type User
Accounts and select the option from the results.

Click Manage another account
from the options available in this window.

You can now click Add a new
user in PC settings. Any existing accounts will be displayed here.

Click + to Add someone else to
this PC.

Microsoft gives you the option
to integrate using phone or email credentials from some of your products such
as Outlook, office, Skype and Xbox.

Click I don’t have this person’s
sign-in information to proceed.

You may click Add a user
without a Microsoft account for the option to set up a local account.

Here you have the option to
create a user account with a secure password. Remember to add a password hint
as Windows would prevent you from proceeding further in the process.

Your new admin account should
now be visible in family and other users window. Highlight the account to
reveal options to change account type or remove the account from the computer.

Clicking the dropdown menu
gives the options to set the account as administrator or a standard user.

As before, log out of the
current sessions and find your new admin account you just created.

Remember to always check a
local administrator account exists on a computer before disjoining from a
domain environment.

You may find yourself trying
to troubleshoot a connection problem between a server and a client computer,
sometimes requiring the client to be disconnected from the domain.

Double
checking you have a local administrator account could save you a lot of
rebuilding time.

We hope
you enjoyed learning the differences between creating admin accounts in Windows
7 and Windows 10.

Thank you for
investing your time with us.

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teams at Microsoft Corporation